Soccer Player Defends Nazi Salute on Twitter

As goal celebrations go, Giorgos Katidis certainly made a poor choice

The Greek soccer player scored for AEK Athens this weekend, then ran to a corner of the field, ripped off his jersey and greeted the crowd with — there's no way around it — a Nazi salute

The stunt earned Katidis a lifetime ban from the Greek national team, quickly became a hot global news story and predictably stirred waves of outrage online. Here's video from Saturday's match:

Katidis later tried to plead ignorance of the gesture via Twitter. "I am not a fascist and would not have done it if I had known what it meant," Katidis posted from his now-deleted Twitter account, according to numerous weekend reports. He also tried to claim that he was simply pointing to a friend in the stands, according to the BBC